Telia and Ericsson clock 15 Gbps in live 5G field trial in Sweden

Telia Company and Ericsson reached peak rates of 15 Gbps and a latency below 3 ms in a live 5G field trial in Sweden.

Sweden-based Telia Company and Ericsson announced back in January their joint goal of making their homeland’s capital Stockholm – together with Estonia’s capital Tallinn – the first cities in the world with 5G, planning to deploy the technology as soon as 2018. In a live 5G field trial conducted in the Stockholm suburb of Kista this week, the first in Europe according to the companies, Telia and Ericsson reached peak rates of 15 Gigabits per second (Gbps), equivalent to more than 40 times the maximum speeds on 4G networks. The trial also achieved a latency below 3 milliseconds (ms). The live 5G field trial was conducted in a real world environment over a live network, using 800 MHz of spectrum in the 15 GHz band.

“This is a great achievement and stepping stone towards taking 5G to our customers in Sweden and Estonia 2018. The standardization and development of 5G has just started. Our knowledge and learnings from testing in a real outdoor environment will be crucial to understand and develop the 5G technology and networks needed to meet our customers’ future requirements on our services in a digitalized society,” said Mats Svärdh, head of Networks and IT Infrastructure, Global Services and Operations, at Telia Company.

“Today marks an important step on our joint 5G roadmap for Sweden and Estonia. Our 5G roadmap will incrementally introduce IoT technologies and 5G concepts that will enhance end user experience and business potential for enterprises and society. Telia and Ericsson offer consumers and businesses to stay ahead with 5G-like services introductions. We are continuously creating new opportunities leveraging the promise of IoT and 5G and we’ll all experience it step by step,” says Peter Laurin, head of Region Northern Europe and Central Asia, at Ericsson.

A few weeks ago, Australia’s Telstra announced live 5G radio test beds in Melbourne with Ericsson, also using 800 MHz of spectrum and reaching aggregate speeds of 20 Gbps. Ericsson competitor Nokia announced yesterday it had reached speeds of up to 5 Gbps and latency of 3 ms in a live public 5G trial in Sydney with operator Vodafone Australia.

When it comes to being first with 5G in the world, Telia is not alone with aiming for that goal. Among others, south Korean operator KT said it intended to have a live 5G service ready for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. In the meantime, competitor SK Telecom is planning to launch a trial 5G service in 2017 and U.S.-based Verizon is also working towards a 2017 5G timeline.

5G activity among operators and vendors is showing no sign of decreasing any time soon, as every industry actor wants to position itself against the 5G vision of enhancing the traditional mobile broadband scenarios, delivering ultra-reliable and low latency communications as well as massive machine type communications, enabling multiple new use cases and business models. Looking more closely at the standardization work on IMT-2020, or 5G, led by the ITU-R, 5G technology itself will only start being defined in 2018. Up until then, the ITU-R’s work will focus on setting the stage for the future, looking more specifically at the vision for 5G, spectrum issues, and gathering technology views.

Source: ITU, Geneva Mission Briefing Series, September 2016

IIoT News Recap: IIoT startups take an increasingly large share of total IoT financing; Nokia and U.S. Cellular reached 5 Gbps in fixed wireless 5G tests; Building 100 smart cities in India by 2020 to cost $31 billion; SK Telecom presented long-term LoRaWAN vision

Source: CB Insights

Startups: IIoT startups take an increasingly large share of total IoT financing

As vertical industries embark on a digitalization journey, industrial IoT (IIoT) startups seem to get increasingly attractive to investors. New data compiled by CB Insights shows that the share of IIoT deals in the overall IoT ecosystem has grown every year since 2013. In 2016 through the third quarter, 154 out of 394 deals were IIoT deals, accounting for 39 percent of total IoT deals. A number of large financing rounds took place this year, including a $70 million Series D round in IoT platform C3 IoT and a $30 million Series B round in industrial robotics maker Clearpath Robotics.

5G: Nokia and U.S. Cellular reached 5 Gbps in fixed wireless 5G tests

Nokia and U.S. Cellular announced they successfully tested 5G technologies for fixed wireless, reaching speeds of 5 Gbps and latency under 2 milliseconds (ms) over a 5G wireless link, using 28 GHz spectrum through an experimental licenses and Nokia’s 5G-ready AirScale radio platform. “We’re excited with this successful 5G testing with Nokia conducted at 28GHz and have seen very promising results, including 5 Gbps speed, ultra-low latency under 2 ms and multiple 4K video streams. We strive to provide our customers in the mid-sized and rural markets we serve with the latest technology that can enhance their lives or businesses. And we will continue to deliver a fast, high-quality network that works whenever and wherever our customers need it,” said Michael S. Irizarry, executive vice president and chief technology officer for U.S. Cellular.

Smart cities: Building 100 smart cities in India by 2020 to cost $31 billion

Management consulting firm Zinnov estimates the total cost of building 100 smart cities in India between 2015 and 2020 at $31 billion. More than 5 percent of the total, approximately $1.5-2 billion, would be spent on technology, in particular on cloud solutions, cloud-based delivery platforms, analytics, and IoT-enabled solutions. “At $870-950 million, Transportation and Power would be the biggest technology spend categories within smart city initiatives followed by Water and Sewage, Governance, Waste Management cumulatively accounting for over $685 million in 5 years,” said Praveen Bhadada, partner and practice head at Zinnov, commenting on the study. The consulting firm estimates that 100 smart cities would contribute $200 billion to GDP, 10 million jobs and over $10 billion savings in traffic congestion.

LPWAN: SK Telecom presented long-term LoRaWAN vision

South Korean operator SK Telecom presented at a press conference in Seoul on Thursday its long-term vision for the Internet of Things (IoT) and its nationwide LoRaWAN infrastructure, Korea Herald reports. The Korean operator, which said it works with 540 client companies on IoT solutions, is preparing to play an active role in supporting IoT innovation. “We’re preparing to become a data platform player in Korea’s emerging IoT ecosystem,” said Cha In-hyok, executive vice president of SK Telecom’s IoT Solution Business Office, at the press conference. “We feel a great sense of obligation as the first carrier in Korea to deploy the LoRaWAN network. With 500 partners already at hand, the success of LoRaWAN affects not only us, but also a lot of companies in (Korea’s emerging) IoT ecosystem,” he added. SK Telecom’s LoRaWAN network was commercially launched in June this year.